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Dice has added more than 200,000 accounts to its cloud-hosted monitoring center platform this year, the company announced today, and has a 24-month goal of reaching 1 million accounts total.

I got the chance to talk with Cliff Dice, company president and CEO, today about the platform’s growth and some of the problems it has helped solve, like dropped signals and account attrition.

Prior to this year, there were only about 10,000 accounts on Dice’s monitoring center, Dice estimated. Many of the new 200,000 accounts were added on after the service received its recent UL-listing. Here's a story on that.

When asked about strategies for hitting the 1 million hosted accounts mark, Dice said that the company’s currently focusing on current Dice software users. Though, he said it could be an easy way for alarm companies to switch from a different automation platform to Dice.

Dice is part owner of a telephone company, and Dice’s hosted monitoring center uses its own network. Having the ability to fully track the signal gives Dice the ability to see when and where a signal gets dropped and address the problem.

“Because we’re controlling everything end-to-end, we don’t have the problems with the VoIP issues that the alarm industry has,” Dice said.

This end-to-end understanding has even helped with attrition. “With the people we’ve put online, it’s cut their attrition primarily because we were able to analyze which panels weren’t working. … A lot of the alarm cancellations, problems, and service calls that alarm companies do, is related to the alarm panels not communicating right.”

Account attrition was cut by about 50 percent among the companies hosted on its cloud center, Dice said.

When I met with Cliff, both at ISC West and ESX, he mentioned the great reception the cloud-hosted service has had. It’s interesting to see more about that.

Think Protection, the mass market home alarm company launched by industry veteran Joel Matlin in June, is preparing for another launch next month: an e-commerce store.

“The launch is incredibly exciting as potential customers can order an alarm system through the store 24/7 from anywhere in the world," Matlin's son, Adam Matlin, Think Protection's COO, told me.

"With us operating throughout the U.S. and Canada, we believe the e-commerce store will present a fantastic opportunity to dramatically expand our brand and our high value/low cost value proposition,” he said.

Joel Matlin is CEO of the company, based and Toronto and Florida. He previously founded AlarmForce and Frisco Bay Industries.

Systems integrator The Protection Bureau has opened a new branch office in Richmond, Va.

I talked to Matthew Ladd, CEO of The Protection Bureau, about the new office today. “We had an opportunity that came to us with people in Richmond who wanted to work for the Protection Bureau,” he said. The integrator has 152 clients in the area and has had “an ongoing service need in region,” he said.

“It was the perfect fit and opportunity. It made sense to open a branch office and we were able to do that with two technicians, a branch manager and a part-time office person,” Ladd said.

“It all came together in two weeks,” he said. The new staff members visited The Protection Bureau headquarters in Philadelphia last week and this week the office manager is in Richmond “teaching them about our systems and procedure so they can blend into The Protection Bureau way of doing business.

The Richmond office will service current and future Protection Bureau customers and Security-Net customers as well. The branch manager will handle sales initially, but Ladd plans to add more sales personnel. “We’ll look to expand and grow the office and make it another success for The Protection Bureau,” he said.

The Protection Bureau does about $15 million in sales annually and has 97 employees. In addition to its headquarters in Philly, it has a satellite office in Plainfield, N.J. That office has three technicians, but Ladd said it's not a branch office. “It’s a service point for our clients in North Jersey through New York and into New England.”

Ladd said that business in 2015 has been good and he’s hearing the same thing from other integrators. “The overall economy is getting stronger.”

A lot of companies seem to have their employee environment on the mind, especially when it comes to designing a new space. CPI Security broke ground on Friday for its new 120,000 square-foot facility, to be built adjacent to its current building in Charlotte, N.C. Alongside this development, the company announced that it plans to add 300 employees, to its current total of 540, over the next couple years.

The new building will hold training facilities, R&D, and the company’s central station, which is CSAA 5 Diamond certified and UL listed, CPI said in a recent release. For the company’s employees, there will be a gym and a dining facility.

When I was at ISC West and ESX a few months ago, I spoke to a number of companies who told me that home automation is a giant opportunity for traditional resi dealers to up-sell—and basically stay alive in this ever-increasing competitive market. Those companies are moving forward.

Then I read reports from the likes of Argus Insights about how consumers are already, and I paraphrase, fed up with home automation. That party is over, Argus said.

Meanwhile, Kerber at Parks Associates says that a greater number of traditional dealers need to get into home automation. I can’t think of one company I’ve spoken to over the past few months who isn’t offering these services. Who isn’t?

ESX will take place west of the Mississippi for the first time in its history next year when it moves to Ft. Worth, Texas.

The tradeshow organizers announced that the show will take place June 8-10, 2016. Organizers said Fort Worth was chosen because of ease of access from most cities, hotel selection, state-of-the-art convention center, and a "walkable and safe urban environment."

ESX will announce the schedule of events and the educational program in January.

Eighty-seven percent of Monitronics’ 1,100 employees were fully moved into the company’s new campus by the end of July (photo of new facility on left). Now all that’s left is to move the central station, which will happen around the beginning of Q4 this year, according to Bruce Mungiguerra, Monitronics’ SVP of operations. I caught up with Mungiguerra recently to hear about how the move went.

“Obviously, moving a thousand people … is never an easy task,” Mungiguerra said. “Providing … the service to our customers without a hiccup was the important part. So, we staggered the move on a weekend-by-weekend basis.”

In these weekend time windows departments, like customer care, tech support, and dealer development, were guided by identified “move captains.” Moving groups department-by-department made the move easier, Mungiguerra said.

I’ve heard a lot about the move over the past several months. I remember talking with Mungiguerra earlier this year about what the move would add to the company’s culture. Here’s a story on that. Not too long ago, when I was at ESX I heard more about it from the company’s dealer sales and marketing coordinator, Bre Otero. "It'll be great to have everybody back in one building," Otero told me.

Now, the bulk of the move is finished. Mungiguerra, when I spoke with him recently, said he was surprised at how smoothly the process went, always waiting for the unexpected to happen—but it never did.

“I don’t think we could have even anticipated that it went as well as it did,” said Mungiguerra. “[I] couldn’t be happier with how the entire company pulled together to make it as successful as it was.”

If so, get it in gear, folks, and submit relevant information for Security Systems News’ ASIS New Show Products section. Just giving a shout out for your benefit and for your last chance. The SSN show issue is always popular and space is limited, so please get in touch asap! We want to know, and so do our readers!

All companies exhibiting at the show can submit a product that is making its debut at ASIS 2015 in September. Companies that have more than one product division may submit one product for each division.

To take advantage of this free editorial opportunity, please send an email with the following information in the body of the text to cdaggett@securitysystemsnews.com

1. Company name 2. Company website 3. Product name 4. Three bullet points that describe your product, each 12 words or less 5. ASIS booth number (essential; you must be exhibiting at ASIS) 6. Image of product (JPEG file with a DPI of 300 or greater. No PDFs, please.)

We can wait until Friday, but that’s it.

Space in the issue is limited, so submitting early ensures you a place in the section!

PowerSeries Neo "combines the flexibility of a modular, hardwired system with the simplicity of a wide range of compatible wireless devices," Tyco said. This platform uses PowerG wireless intrusion capabilities for a hybrid intrusion system. PowerSeries Neo features built-in Z-Wave capabilities through CDMA and HSPA (3G) communicators.

“We’re excited to bring the next generation of smart technology to the commercial space with the PowerSeries Neo powered by Alarm.com,” Dan Kerzner, chief product officer, Alarm.com, said in a prepared statement.

“We have seen smart home technology dramatically improve the safety and efficiency of homes and create more value for our dealer partners, and we believe there are significant opportunities in the commercial market to help business owners manage their locations, secure their properties and make them more efficient.”

Tim Myers, director of product management, Intrusion, Tyco Security Products said in a prepared statement that “The integration of PowerSeries Neo and Alarm.com uniquely anticipates the future needs of the connected environment, whether a residence or a multi-tenant commercial property, and provides infinite opportunities to maximize the system."

I speak to resi dealers five days a week. They tell me that DIY is often a selling point for them and that it works very well for some of their customers—especially in helping homeowners understand their systems better—but that MIY, on the other hand, is not beneficial. What happens if you’re an MIYer and you’re 1,000 miles away from home on vacation or a business trip?

Traditional home security systems are still the mainstay, but not for long, according to the report from Citi, the primary source in the Business Insider article. Even though traditional systems/companies currently make up 93 percent of the home security market and DIY/yet professionally monitored make up 4.7 percent, Citi says in the article, that’s all going to change.

Google’s Nest and Dropcam and Apple’s HomeKit control 2.3 percent of the market.

That 2.3 percent market share will grow to 34 percent in the next five years, Citi says, with the traditional professional systems dropping to 61.6 percent.

How will this play out? Do you agree with the Citi study? I’m interested in your opinions for future articles in Security Systems News. Please let me know. Comment, email me at acanfield@securitysystemsnews.com or call me at 207-846-0600. Thanks!